The American Civil War: Treasures from the Vault

Starts:

9:00 am on Monday, March 4, 2013

Ends:

8:30 pm on Monday, March 4, 2013

Contact Name:

Christopher Gately

The American Civil War: Treasures from the Vault: A new exhibition of original historical documents from the collections at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.
This major exhibition explores, from a variety of perspectives and categories, the causes, reactions, and responses to the great nineteenth-century conflict that divided the fledgling nation of the Unites States of America. This is accomplished with a broad selection of original manuscript pieces: letters, journals, maps, official documents and publications, all selected from collections held in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. Among the collections involved, the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts and the First Corps of Cadets present a close view of the part Massachusetts played in the conflict.
Categories explored in the exhibition include slavery, emancipation, Abraham Lincoln, his Cabinet, and his assassination, the armies of both sides, the Union navy, and the difficulties faced post-war. There are also investigations into slave narratives, the relatively new art of photography, poetry and popular music of the day, to name a few.
Some of the rare items on display include a Richmond, Virginia ledger recording the capture and return of runaway slaves, dated April 1854 - July 1856, shown along with a handwritten bill of sale for a young boy. There are letters from Lincoln and his various Cabinet members: Secretary of War Simon Cameron, Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, and Secretary of State William Seward. Also shown is an extremely rare wanted poster, issued by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, with tipped-on photographs of conspirators John Surratt and David Herold, as well as the assassin himself, John Wilkes Booth.
Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation as the Gotlieb Center celebrates its own 50th Anniversary as a repository of both contemporary and historical figures.
Limited Engagement, March 2013 – August 2013, Monday – Friday 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Boston University, Richards-Frost Room, 771 Commonwealth Avenue, First Floor

The intense discussion this summer about the newly published Harper Lee novel, Go Set a Watchman—and the remembrances of Lee’s widely admired, coming-of-age classic, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)—can be viewed, perhaps, as a validation of the humanities’ task: “To revisit things, to unsettle, to think about the things you thought you knew,” says John […]

Each summer, Boston’s North End is transformed by a combination of street festival and religious veneration as the city’s old Italian neighborhood pays tribute to the saints that immigrants prayed to in their hometowns. Over the next three days, Hanover Street will be filled with music, decorations, and the savory smell of Italian food as […]

Lindsey Walko remembers back in the sixth grade, when she saved the day while playing one of the orphans in a production of Annie. “During the preset, our stage manager forgot to put the laundry basket on,” Walko says, and she and the rest of the cast quickly noticed that the key prop was missing. […]

Education is the central mission of Boston University’s College of General Studies (CGS) and its professors, who don’t have teaching assistants and carry heavier course loads than most BU faculty. It is unprecedented and gratifying, says Natalie McKnight, dean of the college, that two CGS faculty members, Samuel Hammer and Meg Tyler, have received Fulbright Scholar […]

The first thing to know about Seth Blumenthal’s Marijuana in American History course is its apparent uniqueness; Blumenthal (GRS’13) says he’s trawled fruitlessly for evidence of a history-of-grass-class elsewhere, though it’s possible to find business offerings on the marijuana industry. The second thing to know: any notion that this is a fumes-shrouded pushover went up […]